44 FISHERIES ARBITRATION AT THE HAGUE 



As an incident to the fact that these people, father and son, 

 had come to Uve upon this industry or trade with the Americans, 

 there came an assertion on their part of a right to take the fish 

 themselves, and to profit by the industry; and that was the basis 

 of the Fortune Baydifiiculty. I will read from some of the afiidavits 

 about the Fortime Bay affair, in the United States Case Appendix, 

 pp. 694 and 695. 



The Tribunal will remember that after the Treaty of Washing- 

 ton was made, under which the United States, pursuant to the 

 HaHfax award, paid 5,500,000 dollars to Great Britain for the 

 privilege of fishing, a lot of American fishing-vessels went into 

 Fortune Bay to exercise the privilege, and they undertook to do so 

 and were prevented by the inhabitants. I read from p. 694 of 

 the United States Appendix: 



"The examination of James Tharnell, of Anderson's Cove, Long Harbor, 

 taken upon oath, and who saith: 



"'I am a special constable for this neighborhood.'" 



That is, a special officer of Newfoundland at that point in 

 Fortune Bay. I now read from the foot of p. 694, and over on 

 to p. 695, what he says about the Fortune Bay affair : 



"The people were not aware that it was illegal to set the seines that time 

 of the year, and were only prompted to their act by the fact that it was Sunday. 

 We all consider it to be the greatest loss to us for the Americans to bring those 

 large seines to catch herring. The seines will hold 2,000 or 3,000 barrels of 

 herring, and, if the soft weather continues, they are obliged to keep them in the 

 seines for sometimes two or three weeks, until the frost comes, and by this means 

 they deprive the poor fishermen of the bay of their chance of catching any with 

 their small nets, and then, when they have secured a sufficient quantity of 

 their own, they refuse to buy of the natives. 



"If the Americans had been allowed to secure all the herrings in the bay 

 for themselves, which they could have done that day, they would have filled 

 all their vessels, and the neighboring fishermen would have lost all chance 

 the following week-days. The people beUeve that they (the Americans) were 

 acting illegally in thus robbing them of their fish." 



On p. 699 I read from the affidavit of John Cluett, of Fortune 

 Bay: 



"The Americans, by hauling herring that day when the Englishmen could 

 not, were robbing them of their lawful and just chance of securing their share 



